CHAPTER 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION
The development of the poultry industry over the years is absolutely remarkable
and the evolution of artificial Incubation is not less extraordinary. From Egyptian
rudimentary incubators to the concept of single stage Incubation using extremely
sophisticated machines, three thousand years of continuous progress was achieved
by understanding the incubation process and consequently developing efficient
equipment.
1.2 BACKGROUND
At around 3,000 years ago, the early Egyptian incubators consisted of a large mud
brick building with a series of small rooms (ovens) located at each side of a central
passageway. In the upper part of these small incubation rooms, there were
shelves for burning straw, camel manure or charcoal in order to provide radiant heat
to the eggs below. Vents were located in the roof of these chambers and they
allowed smoke and fumes from the fires to escape and also provided some light.
The entrance to each incubator room from the passageway was through a small
manhole. Thousands of eggs were placed on the floor of each incubator room and
they were turned twice a day. Temperature control was achieved by controlling the
strength of the fire, the opening of the manholes and by regular openings of vents
in the roof of the ovens and passageway. Humidity was controlled by spreading
moist jute over the eggs when necessary. In this rudimentary incubation system, the
temperature, humidity and ventilation were checked and controlled without using
measuring devise like thermometers. It was done by having the hatchery manager
and the hatchery workers actually living inside of the building. By living there, they
would soon learn to judge the humidity, temperature and air freshness using their
own feelings and their sense of touch such as by holding it against their eye lid and
the most sensitive part of their body for judging temperature. Aristotle, the Greek
philosopher, writing about poultry at around 400BC, describes a similar method to
Egyptian incubators, but the necessary heat to the eggs was provided by burying
them in piles of decomposing manure. Artificial incubation of eggs was also
practiced in China as early as 246 BC and this method eventually spread through
South East Asia. As in Egypt, a heavy walled, insulated mud brick building was used
and inside of it, there were a series of mud brick ovens heated by charcoal fire.
Similarly to the Egyptians, the temperature of the eggs was measured against the
eyelid of the operator. The Chinese utilized the concept of heat transfer. After the
chicken embryos developed, they started to produce increasing amounts of heat
and consequently they did not need additional heat. By mixing bags of older eggs
with the newer ones, this animal heat helped to warm the new incoming eggs. At 16
days, fowl eggs were removed to another hatching area in the building, where they
were just covered with a blanket and allowed to hatch from

19 to 21 days.

1.3 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION, MOTIVATION AND JUSTTIFICATON

Since Egyptians started the process of artificial incubation of eggs, its principles
were established and they consisted of providing a warm and humid environment
for the eggs and turning them periodically. It is interesting to note that, after three
thousand years, the modern incubators work basically in the same principle as far
back primitive age. Furthermore, the success of those rudimentary incubators did
depend on the workers who lived inside of the incubators. Nowadays, highly
sophisticated machines with automatic control of all vital parameters are used, but
the success of the whole process still relies on the people who work at the
hatcheries. In other words, the hatchery manager and its team do make all the
difference. In Ghana most of the rural community relies on farming activities such
as crop plantation and the rearing of animals such as goats, sheep's, cattle's, flows,
ducks and turkeys for their livelihood. farmers that are in to poultry production in
the Northern part of Ghana still rear poultry in the traditional way, which is the
same fowl that laid the eggs is the same fowl that does the hatching. In the
traditional way of hatching eggs some of the eggs are be abandoned because size
of the fowl cannot cover all eggs to give them heat and proper turning for hatching
which leads to low number of chicken.
1.4 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF PROBLEM OF STUDY
The artificial incubation of eggs is an extremely useful skill for the serious canary
breeder. There are many advantages to having an artificial incubator as part of your
bird room equipment. Here are some of the most common ones:

To eliminate abandoned eggs during natural incubation.

Change of weather in the rural areas like the northern part of
Ghana affect hens but with the artificial incubator change of
weather does not affect the incubation.
To improved poultry farming in the rural community.
Beginning incubation on stored eggs while you are still waiting for
foster hens to become available.
To reduce the bearing on a fowl being a layer and the same time
incubating the eggs.
To increase the number of eggs hatch at a time.
1.5 RESEARCH PROBLEM

With a bit of research we determined it would be the best course of action for
Several reasons:

The incubator will help farmer produce product in a short time with large
amount of eggs.
An egg incubator can be considered a replacement for incubate session of
animals.
The incubator will be large enough to avoid problems of less production.
Ideas to incubate many types of egg in one time can be tested.
1.6 RESEARCH APPROACH

The project development was divided into two main Sections. There is mechanical
design and electronic design. Then this parts will combined together to perform the
Egg Incubator System for Various Types of Egg. Actually, this project consists of
three elements that should be controlled. There are movement, temperature and
humidity. In this project, the light is use to give the suitable temperature to the egg.
The percentage of the humidity in the incubator need to be consistent by the
control of the fan and water in the incubator, it can make sure the humidity and
ventilation in good condition. The status condition in the incubator will appear on
the LCD screen display (digital thermometer), to make sure all part of egg was
heated by lamp.

1.7 SCOPE OF RESEARCH

Design an egg incubator with manual controlled for egg rolling periodically
according to types of egg and parameters given by user.